Friday, December 28, 2007

Been back home in New York for some nice time with the family.The weather has been super mild - sometimes it feels like April or even May in Alaska...Some photos are in order!Time with family, both young and old

Monday, December 10, 2007

Got out and rode for about 45 minutes today, that might not seem like alot but when you really haven ridden in a few months it sure means alot. No pain, just stiff. I was pretty giddy getting part of my identity back...

then was cranking away on ms. Juki in the afternoon when I guess I did something stupid and something jammed in the bobbin area really bad and bent a part, bummer, hope its not expensive... was hoping to bike to work but looks like I'll be driving and lugging a 70lb sewing machine head to the repair shop.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Well I can bend my knee past 90 degrees so thats good. Starting to be a little more liberal with it on the stairs and stuff.I got ready this evening by getting my bike back into winter commuting mode. Bought some new 2.1 29er studs, mounted them on snowcats and onto the monkey. She's looking sharp.. I cant wait.

Its just in time because I'm starting to burn out on swimming, 3 straight months 4-5x a week will do it to you. However I've been thinking of starting to do triathalons this next summer, that would be funny.. indeed

Otherwise just been sewing a ton, bags and poggies. Its been fun dialing in the poggies after a few trial runs. I'm psyched to get this first batch done.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

I took up creating time lapse videos last year about this time. Its super fun when you actually get something that looks visually cool. There are two ways to go about it - first, you can set up a video camera on a tripod, hit record and come back in an hour when the tape is full. This method isnt soo good because you can only catch one hour of the scene unless you are there to change the tape. It is also very computer intensive since you have to capture all that video, then speed it up in post software. Did I mention it can eat up hard drive space? typically an hour of video will yield about 15 seconds or less of well speed up time lapse footage - not so good for all that work!

The second preferable method is setting up a digital camera with a timer. This can be an external timer, or a built in intervelometer function in the camera. Most digital SLR's have this now, but very few, if not any of the current point and shoots offer a control connection. Ebay is your friend for older the older nikon coolpix series, remember the viewfinder? I miss them too...

Anyway the collection I've accumulated is split about 50/50 between video and stills. The stills offer more control since you capture higher resolution images, then can pan and crop in video software with any loss in resolution. Since normal video starts at this resolution level, any panning and cropping will loose resolution.

You kinda have to go about the whole thing not expecting to get anything. lots of trial and error, half the time my batteries die, the timer screws up, I screw up or there was a smudge on the lens.. but once in a while good things happen, very good things.

So here is a little mix of some of the better clips from the last year. most of these are in the other vids on youtube. fun stuff

Everyone seems to be getting amped for the winter races up here, and for good reason. Although I've only done the race to McGrath once, I sure learned alot during that year of prep and training that went into it. Having alot of cold weather experience going into it helped, but the reality still holds true that its one of the hardest races period.

The fun training weekends with friends..

The weekday gear testing rides during -20 January cold snaps..

The bueatiful mornings after solo bivys...

The carefull, or not so carefull, food packing...

Then finally you just want to get going and get the adventure started

The race starts and reality sets in...

There are the highs... like bivying on top of rainy pass watching the northern lights..

and the lows...

But in the end, long after the race is over, you still will find your mind focusing on how you are going to get back to that to that small village on the river in the middle of interior Alaska.